The U.S. embassy in Bahrain is among many in the region whose Marine security guard detachment grew after the Benghazi attack. An additional 1,000 Marines were called up to guard embassies around the world, even as the overall size of the Marine Corps is shrinking from about 202,000 to 175,000.

Although the Bahraini government is a strong U.S. ally, Cpl. Jeremy Shupe, a Marine security guard assigned to the embassy there, said the detachment operates as if an attack is imminent.

“They always try to keep us on our toes. It could happen at any moment. There have been attacks on embassies that no one thought would be attacked … so we should always be prepared,” said Shupe, who served at Miramar before deploying to Bahrain.

Amos visited the Truman and its embarked Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 312, a unit he commanded 22 years ago, while docked on a liberty call at Bahrain halfway through the deployment. The carrier and its 70 aircraft have been flying about 100 launches daily, including missions in support of the war in Afghanistan.

On the drive to Isa Airbase, located on a sand bitten and barren southern swath of the island that has hosted Marines on and off since the first Persian Gulf War, Amos’ motorcade passed black smoke from a tire burning protest.

Although their day-to-day work is essentially a goodwill mission, Amos reminded Miramar Marines working at Isa Airbase to remain alert. “Look at what is going on around the world. If you’re reading the paper, you have a sense of what is happening in the Gulf region and you understand why you are here,” he said, standing in a hangar paved with fold-up rubber matting.

You might think, “I’m not in the fight, the fight’s across in Afghanistan or down in Sudan. But the fight could very well come here or you could be an integral part of it, and it could happen tonight. That’s why you’re here … as a hedge against uncertainty.”

Boxer

The Boxer Amphibious Ready Group, which includes Camp Pendleton’s 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit and the amphibious ships Harpers Ferry and New Orleans, deployed from San Diego in late August. It was the first West Coast Marine unit to sail with the Osprey hybrid aircraft that flies like a plane and lands like a helicopter.

Amos flew aboard as the Boxer steamed past oil rigs in the turquoise waters separating Saudi Arabia and Iran. The ship serves as an untethered command center for a broad range of engagements honing military and political alliances throughout the Middle East and into Africa.

Their missions have included everything from ship-to-shore operations alongside Emirati Marines to disrupting the movement of weapons meant for terrorist groups and educating civilians in the Horn of Africa on avoiding land mines.

An already volatile region of the world plagued by Islamist radicalism has been newly unsettled of late in the wake of the Arab Spring, sectarian tensions stoked by the Syrian civil war, Iranian nuclear aspirations, violence over the horizon in the newly formed nation of South Sudan, and political tensions over arms deals between the United States and Gulf allies.